Comment by MrFoof | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MrFoof | Hacker News Reader

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I honestly wonder how the softcore content works out in terms of impacting Twitch's balance sheet.

I'm not interested in it, but I'm not against it. Yet I genuinely question how it works in Twitch's favor in any material way.

Basically, I look at the softcore streams as those streamers using Twitch as a platform to provide additional content for no meaningful capital cost to the themselves (the streamers, not Twitch). It's basically a free additional discovery and advertising channel to attract new users to their core monetization platform (like OnlyFans) where they make their actual money. Twitch is basically giving them a free platform to direct most of the money to another platform, not to Twitch.

So where is Twitch making real money in that? If you're telling me through subs and bits, you're out of your mind, because that's peanuts compared to what those gals are getting from their OnlyFans, merch, other donation platforms, etc. They're snatching up nickels while the comparative money firehose is pointed elsewhere, all while diluting their brand at least a bit. Granted, I feel they need to expand their audience regardless out of the video game niche, but I question if this has been materially moving the needle.

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Don't even get me started on the other core issues. The abhorrent recommendations and difficulty of discovery, the inadequate monetization options for streamers, the limited number of advertisers and where I only get recommended product categories (like energy drinks) I have never bought in my existence, etc.

> So where is Twitch making real money in that? If you're telling me through subs and bits, you're out of your mind, because that's peanuts compared to what those gals are getting from their OnlyFans, merch, other donation platforms, etc.

I don't really understand this logic. The fact that they make more money somewhere else means that they should have to somehow give that money to Twitch as well? If Twitch isn't set up to be able to make a profit from subs and bits, that sounds like an issue with their business model, and they should find a better way to monetize users on their site. From some very basic searching, it looks like there are NBA, MLB, and NFL players who stream on Twitch, as well as professional musicians and actors, and I imagine most of them aren't making the majority of their income on Twitch either, so should Twitch be trying to get a cut of their product endorsement deals and other sources of income that come from being famous?

I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong that that Twitch is losing money on them, but I don't really see how that's something specific to one type of streamer. If the issue is the ratio of subscribers/donations to the number of people watching those streams, why not just make policies about that specifically, like putting limits on how frequently someone can stream after a certain number of hours without having a certain amount of revenue either via subs/donations or showing ads? I think they'd make much more effective strides towards profitability focusing on stuff like that.

My point wasn't that Twitch should be given the money for no reason, but that Twitch is foolish for not finding ways to be the platform in which people want to pay the money through, instead of the third-party platforms.

Donations is a great example. Look at how much large streamers get from third-party donation sites, versus what streamers get from subscriptions and bits. It is wildly unbalanced in favor of third-party sites. That's on Twitch, for failing to figure out how to better incentivize viewers to pay via Twitch, as opposed to those viewers going to a third-party platform to pay instead.

That's my real point. Twitch has monetization options, but they pale in comparison to third parties, ergo that's where a lot of a streamer's (not talking just softcore streamers, but in general) revenue comes from -- third parties, and not Twitch. Twitch desperately needs to figure out how to provide more competitive and appealing options to both viewers and its platform streamers, lest it continue to lose out on revenue by simply being a vastly inferior option to everywhere else.

it’s because they’re woke and think it’s sexist to ban that stuff

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